SPACES: cheaper, less well-known alternatives are available

PRIVATE car parks will be advertised by the borough council to prevent a crisis for Christmas shoppers.

The borough, which is desperate to make up for a predicted £580,000 shortfall in its parking budget, has been forced to take the step after the emergency closure of Chatham Street car park last week.

This time last year Chatham Street offered 400 spaces to Christmas shoppers but because of health and safety fears it has been shut.

And the council's parking headache was worsened when the Renaissance Hotel, which used to use Chatham Street for its customer parking,

rented 44 spaces at the Broad Street Mall - another borough car park.

The council's traffic bosses have worked double-quick to find additional car parking spaces, as they feared turning away trade for the town.

And as a consequence they will end up putting up signs and flash updates of space availability on

message boards of key competitors such as the station car park, which offers weekend spaces at a snip of the price of council run car parks.

First Great Western, which owns the station multi-storey, has 1,300 spaces at £4.50 for 24 hours at

weekends, but bosses say they mostly lie empty because people don't realise they are cheap and available.

A spokesman for the train company said: "There are normally about 50 cars in there so there will be plenty of space available."

The borough will also advertise an 800-space car park in Napier Road.

Council spokesman David Milward said the scheme was just common sense and pointed out the borough already advertises on behalf of one competitor.

He said: "We have always advertised for The Oracle car park."

He added the council had managed to free up 500 spaces at the station car park which aren't normally available to the public. Two floors are normally closed off but will be open after successful negotiations.

He said the park and ride scheme would also be running on the three Sundays before Christmas, for free. It currently runs from Monday to Saturdays from Madejski Stadium.

The council is now undertaking an investigation into why its parking budget is on course to be overspent.